Runner

8

Jane drove for three hours and then let Christine drive again. They moved in the afternoon across the flat plain left by the receding prehistoric Great Lakes. They passed signs for Youngstown and Cleveland, Akron and Toledo. Soon the signs advised them of the distances to Detroit and Chicago. Christine said, "Are we headed for Chicago?"

"No. We're going to keep moving west a bit longer, and stopping in big cities is a lot of time and work. You have to fight traffic all the way in, then find a room in a place you think might be safe but don't really know. Even expensive hotels can fool you, because they're in the center of things, and certain criminals like that. The room will cost twice as much as it should. Then you have to find your way out in the morning rush hour."

"So where do we stop?"

"Suburbs, or smaller towns along the way. The chain hotels near airports can be good because they're generally on big highways and they're cheap, quick, and anonymous. They're full of business travelers who check in late one day and head out early the next. They have restaurants, so you don't have to show yourself outside."

Christine looked apprehensive. "Are you trying to tell me that big cities are out? That from now on I'll never be able to live in a real city?"

"Not at all. Probably you'll end up in one, or near one. That's where the jobs are, and most of the universities that will offer what you want to learn. It's where the big hospitals are—which for the next few months, you'll need. And big cities are easy places to hide."

"But which one?"

"Right now we need to find a place to simply put you for about four months. You'll live under the name Linda Welles."

"Four months? But what am I doing?"

"As little as possible."

"I don't understand you."

"You're pregnant. You'll take care of yourself—eat right, get the sort of moderate exercise your doctor should have told you about, get a full eight hours of sleep at night. We'll buy you a few of the better child-care books, and you'll read them. You'll make lists of the things you'll need to buy for the baby—clothes, diapers, crib, changing table, toys, blankets. The more of that you do ahead of time, the less you'll have to do later."

"That's it?"

Jane looked at her thoughtfully, and kept driving. "You've been out of their sight for less than twenty-four hours, but we've created a break in your trail. Remember, the bigger we can make the break—the longer you haven't been seen or heard from—the harder you'll be to find. While you're spending your time taking care of your health and your baby's, what are the four hunters doing?"

"How should I know?"

"They're searching for you. They won't have any idea where you are, so they'll be working very hard, trying everything at once to pick up any hint of your location, or even your direction. That's one of the ways that we'll slowly manipulate the odds in your favor."

"Against those people? It doesn't sound as though the odds ever go in my favor."

"It depends on how you think about it. Every day that you're free and healthy, we're wasting their time, tiring them out. We'll get you into a comfortable, safe place. Then, every time it rains, I want you to think of them standing outside in the cold and wet, watching some hotel entrance a thousand miles from you. While you're sleeping, they're sitting in a car in an airport parking lot watching for you to step off a shuttle bus. Every day will make them more tired and frustrated. And eventually Richard will run out of money or patience and stop paying them. Then your odds go way up."

Christine thought about it for a few seconds. "I guess I'd like that to be true. I'll try to think of it that way." She paused. "Most of the time I've felt the opposite way. Every day I'm getting bigger and heavier and slower. A lot of the time I don't feel so great."

"That's just for now. We'll use the time keeping you invisible, and preparing for the next stage. After the baby is born, you'll be ready to be a new person."

"Two people."

"Right," Jane said. "The main thing is not to allow yourself to feel defeated. You're already having a lot of hormonal changes, and there will be others later that might make your head spin. So we'll give you specific practical things to work on that will help."

"You seem to know a lot about this—pregnancy and everything."

"I've thought about it a lot."

"But you don't have kids."

"No. You don't always get what you want."

"Maybe you will."

"Maybe," said Jane. "But you're the one we've got to get through it right now." Jane had been feeling more and more deprived as they talked about babies, but now the feeling had grown into a painful emptiness, and she wanted it to end. She had admitted she wanted a baby, and it was obvious that she didn't have one. What else was going to be required of her?

Christine was quiet for a time. Then she said, "Jane?"

"What?"

"When it happens, do you think you could be there?"

"Be there? At the hospital?"

"In the delivery room. At least at the hospital, though. It's just that being there, doing this alone, with nobody around who even knows who I am or cares about me, it just scares me so much. No, I'm sorry. I guess it's too much. I'm sorry."

"I understand. I'll try to be there when it happens. There are all sorts of practical reasons for me to be with you then, and for at least a few weeks afterward. I'm a pro at dealing with doctors, and I'm pretty good with babies, too."

"How did you learn?"

Jane hid her emotions and spoke about it as though she were speaking about someone else, some future Jane who could look back on this and feel no sadness. "When I was a teenager, I used to babysit a lot. I was an only child, so babies were great fun to me. Then when I grew up I married a surgeon. I wanted to be the best wife the world has ever known, so I had to find volunteer work I could do at the hospital. There are hierarchies to volunteer organizations. You can't just pop in one afternoon and announce you're going to be chair of some important committee. You have to find things to do, help out where you can until people get to know you. Since I knew babies, I started out volunteering to hold the babies who needed it—preemies and drug babies, mostly. I would come in and read to the toddlers and watch them in the playroom. I also spent a lot of time doing fund-raising mailings. It made me a world-class envelope stuffer, but I'm still better with babies."

"Will you teach me?"

Jane hesitated. "Sure. I'll tell you everything I can in advance, and then show you when the time comes. And, as I said, the books can be useful. If you do your homework ahead of time, you probably won't find yourself at three A.M. holding a screaming baby in one hand, trying to find the page about colic with the other."

"It's intimidating, but it sounds so—I don't know—normal. Colic is a regular problem that other people have to think about, too. It's just as though everything is okay."

"Things are going to be okay. We're going to make them okay."

"When I used to think about this, I always thought I'd be a little older, and that Richard would be there with me. We would figure everything out together."

"Of course."

"'I always thought.' That's stupid, isn't it?"

"No. It isn't. The most common mistake that women make is sleeping with the wrong man. And most of the time, the men aren't even trying to hide what they're really like."

"Have you?"

Jane hesitated, then relented. "Yes. But I'll leave it at that. No details."

Early in the evening Jane said, "We'll be near Madison, Wisconsin, in about an hour. That ought to be a good place to spend the night."

"I'm ready," said Christine. "I feel as though we've been driving forever."

"It's been over six hundred miles since we left Buffalo." They watched for signs, then came off Interstate 90 and took smaller roads toward Madison, but stopped outside the city at a tall, monolithic white building that Jane judged to be the right kind of hotel. Christine said, "I hope they have a room for us."

"They will. It's already evening, and the parking lot is just over half-full. We're not near the airport, and there isn't any congestion here, so people probably don't take taxis."

"You're so conscious of everything. You think about everything ahead of time."

"You will, too. You're already learning. Remember what I told you. Look for signs that the place is safe before you even turn off your engine. Most people leave their cars with the valet, or at least near the main entrance while they check in. We'll leave the car around the side where it's less conspicuous." They got out and walked toward the front of the hotel.

Christine glanced over her shoulder at the car. "It doesn't look conspicuous. It's just a big dark gray car."

"With New York plates."

"Oh. Yeah," Christine said. "I suppose if they were right behind us, they'd start looking for a car with New York plates, wouldn't they? But I'm supposed to be looking for exits. The big one in front. One along the side of the building. That's probably at the end of a hallway with rooms. One in the back, at least."

"Good. There could be half a dozen. The good thing about hotels is that there are always lots of exits. The bad thing is that they're also entrances. If the four were right behind us, they would want to enter the hotel unobtrusively and take you out by one of the side exits."

"'If they were right behind us.' You keep saying that. Do you really think they could be?"

Jane shook her head. "I doubt it. I've been watching the road behind us since we left Buffalo, and I've seen nothing that worried me. I don't know where they are, so I don't stop looking. All the time, no matter what we're doing or where we are, I try to ask myself all the what-if questions. I want you to do that, too. Make it a habit. Look at everything the way you would if you thought they might be here in five minutes. What would you look for?"

"Hiding places. Ways out of the building that they won't notice right away. People who might help us."

"Good. Now let me add a couple of things. They seem to be trying to take you rather than kill you. That means they have to trap you. Look for anything you might use to break out of a trap. Sometimes there are valet-parking attendants who take your car when you arrive and bring it back when you leave. As you go by them, watch to see where they put the keys. A lot of the time it's just a box with hooks in it. During slow times there's often one guy on duty, and when he runs to get a car, there's nobody."

"You're telling me to steal a car?"

"You'd take it just long enough to get out of here, and ditch it before anybody really knows enough to call the cops. The other thing to look for is a weapon. Obviously the car is the best one."

"I remember."

"There are always others. They're often better than a weapon concealed on you, because once you notice them, they're in plain sight where you can simply pick them up and use them without carrying them around."

"What kind?"

"Suppose you're in the dining room at the buffet. There are steak knives and big, sharp forks. There are coffeepots and soup kettles and servers full of hot liquids. A gallon of coffee won't kill anybody, but it could send him to the hospital. Around the building there will be gardeners with pruning shears, shovels, and rakes. Inside there are often handymen with hammers, linoleum knives, heavy wrenches. In the bar you can break off a bottle and kill somebody with it. The point isn't to make a list. It's to walk through the world with your eyes open. You'll see danger ahead of time, and you'll see ways to escape."

They entered the lobby, and Christine waited while Jane went to the desk and registered with a credit card in the name of Carol Stevens. The transaction was uneventful, as Jane had known it would be. The five years since she had used any of her homegrown identities for anything risky had added depth to them. She met Christine at the elevator and punched the three button.

"Why the third floor? Did you pick it?"

"Yes. Normally I like to be a bit higher up if I'm trying to be invisible. But the people we're worried about wouldn't hesitate to set something off to smoke us out or cause a distraction. Hotels are a nasty place to be if there's a fire, and no fire department in the world has a ladder that reaches above the fifth floor."

"But they don't know where we are."

"In the town where I live, there hasn't been anyone who came to find me in five years, and there hasn't been a murder in at least seven. Every night I lock all the doors and set the alarm. Then I make sure the shotgun is where I left it—loaded, with the safety on."

"Am I going to have to do all that?"

"Not the same things. You'll take other precautions that fit your situation. The point is to take every one that's available."

The elevator doors opened, and Christine noticed that Jane was holding her suitcase differently, resting it comfortably on her hip and gripping it in both hands. Christine could see it protected her torso, and she could throw it if she wanted to. She leaned forward to look to the left and right in the hall before she stepped out, carrying the suitcase by its handle.

The room was a suite at the far end of the hall. Jane unlocked the door and looked around before she moved inward to admit Christine.

Christine went to the farther double bed, near the window. "What a nice room. I'm so glad to be here. I feel like we've been traveling for weeks."

Jane stood at the side of the window and opened the curtain a couple of inches. "I see a better place to put the car. Lock everything, and I'll be back in a couple of minutes." She walked out, and Christine closed the door, bolted it, and put the chain in its slot.

She went to the window and looked out. After another minute she saw Jane drive the dark gray Town Car around the building. There was only a single line of spaces, most of which were filled. Christine could see there were signs in front of the first six spaces. She guessed that they were reserved for people who worked at the hotel, but the rest of the spaces were unmarked. Jane pulled into one of them, got out, and went to a door in the side of the building.

Christine let the curtain swing closed again, went to the door, and looked out through the peephole at the empty hallway. From this room she could see all the way up the hall to the elevators. She watched for Jane, but she was startled when Jane suddenly slid into view right in front of the peephole and reached up to knock. Christine opened the door, then closed it behind Jane and engaged the locks again. "Where did you come from?"

"Just now? The stairs. This is just like any other place we've stopped. You look for entrances and exits, and then if you can, you try a couple."

"Is that the best way out?"

"Probably, if we have to leave in a hurry. Parking there will also give us the chance to check on the car once in a while. If someone is watching it, or getting in position to block it in, we'll be able to see." She paused. "Would you like a nap before dinner?"

"I think so, if it's okay."

"Sure. I'm going to go take a look around the hotel. Lock up again, okay?"

"Okay."

"When you lock everything from inside, my key won't work, so you'll have to let me in again. But don't open the door unless you can look through the peephole and see me."

Christine locked the door behind her, and then lay on the bed by the window and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. She awoke to the sound of Jane's knock. It was sharp and insistent, and Christine had an indistinct memory of a quieter, more tentative knock that had not seemed quite real. When she opened the door, Jane came in carrying a rubberized canvas tote bag.

"Sorry to wake you," said Jane.

"Your hair is wet. Did you go swimming?"

"Yes." She opened her bag, held up a black nylon swimming suit, and hung it on the towel rack in the bathroom. "I bought the suit and goggles and some shorts at the gift shop. I went to the gym, and after that I got into the pool. They're always overchlorinated, so my new black suit will probably be gray, but a swim always feels good."

"I admire you. Even before I was pregnant I wouldn't have done that."

"Later on, after the baby, you should try to get into the habit. Do it while you're young. It gives you energy, fights off depression, keeps you healthy. Part of beating these people is making a life that works."

"I don't find it easy to think that far ahead right now."

"Then don't," said Jane. "Keep your mind on today, and we'll do just fine. Let's go have dinner."

The next morning they checked out of the hotel at nine, drove out on Interstate 90 and switched to 94. They were in St. Paul in the middle of the afternoon, and then crossed over into Minneapolis.

After a few minutes Christine said, "Wow. This is so beautiful, so green. I love all the little lakes right in town."

"I was thinking of this as a place to stop. What would you think of spending the next three or four months here?"

"I don't know. Doesn't it get awfully cold?"

"Colder than you can imagine. But from now until September you're more likely to complain because it's hot and humid. The idea is to be someplace where nobody expects you to be and there are good doctors and hospitals during your pregnancy. Your due date is in September, right? We could leave here a few weeks after that, before winter sets in."

"Do you know the city?"

"Pretty well. I would sometimes stop here because a man who lived here used to sell me things."

"Like the one in New York?"

"This one was different. He was a fixer, a go-between. He knew people who would supply forged papers, but also cars with several sets of plates, or guns, or whatever else someone would pay for. You would come to him, and he would go to them."

"Is he still here?"

"No. He wasn't selective about the people he would deal with. Some of the people who came to him were pretty scary, so he lived in a big old house on a hill overlooking a nice little park with a lake on it, and had bodyguards living with him who were even scarier than the customers. One of them killed him."

"That's awful."

"I can't say I was surprised. If you pay people to be willing to kill, then you're surrounded by people who are willing to kill for money. You have money. It's a built-in problem. But don't worry. He and his bodyguards have been gone for years."

"Are there a lot of people like that here?"

"There aren't a lot like that anywhere. One reason he set up his business here was that there wasn't a lot of crime. It kept him safe, it made his customers—some of whom were carrying a lot of cash—safe, and drew very little attention. And, as I said, they're all long gone."

"Is this where you would stay if it were you?"

"The right place for you depends on lots of things. Settling in an apartment in a quiet neighborhood anywhere is better than being on the run. Minneapolis is a place you've never been to before, right?"

"Yes."

"And it's not the sort of place a San Diego girl usually would pick, because it sounds alien to people from Southern California."

"But is it the place you'd pick for yourself?"

"Probably not. I've been here too often. And it's not as much of a stretch of the imagination to see me living happily in a cold place. I've lived in this latitude, and I've seen winters. I can't say what city is the best for you, but I know this won't be the first place they'd look."

"I'll stay here."

Jane found them a hotel in Minneapolis. It wasn't as luxurious as the one in Madison, but it was a big hotel that was part of a chain, and it was comfortable. When the desk clerk asked how long they'd be staying, Jane said, "Five days." He said, "Tonight through..." and Jane answered, "Monday the first. We'll check out on the second." She bought a newspaper on the way to their hotel room.

When they were in the new room, Jane took out the classified section and began circling the ads for apartments. Christine stood behind her for a few seconds, looking over her shoulder.

"Uh ... Jane?"

"Hmmm?"

"Those are all expensive. I never had very much money, and I spent a lot of what I had just finding my way to you in Buffalo. I have to get a cheap one I can pay for when I find a job."

Jane didn't look up. "Don't think about that."

"But I have to."

"Surely you must realize that when people come to me, most of them haven't had time to plan ahead and save up for the trip. Some don't have time to pack, and some don't even have time to dress."

"Like me."

"Like you. I'll get you what you need."

"How do I pay you back? And what about your fee?"

Jane closed the section of newspaper and looked into Christine's eyes. "I don't charge a fee for helping someone who's in mortal danger, or for anything else. I'm doing this for the reasons I've always done it—because it's what you need, and because I can. When I think you're safe, I'll go home. I won't communicate with you again, and you should forget about me unless you think you've been found."

"Can't I send you something later? I want to."

"No. Sending me anything would only give your enemies one extra chance to trace you, and endanger me, too. When I started doing this, sometimes people I had helped sent me presents—birth certificates, guns, money—mostly money. In a few cases it was a lot of money. I never used much of it, so it grew. So now the fund I've always kept for travel has grown big enough to make me uncomfortable. You're my last runner. I won't be needing it for somebody who shows up at my door next week."

"Then what can I do for you?"

Jane shrugged. "You've come along too late for that. There's not much that you can do that will help me. I would like you to concentrate for the moment on being safe and having a nice life. That would mean my effort didn't go to waste. Then someday, do something for somebody else."

"You mean some innocent victim. That's who you've helped, right?"

"Not everyone who wants to disappear is a victim, and very few are innocent. All I can say is none of them deserved to die." She opened the classified ads again to signify that the topic was closed.

She didn't have enough patience to try to explain to Christine the proper way to think about money. Among the old people, a person's status had never been determined by how much wealth he could accumulate, but how much he brought back to give away. The way that the first white visitors learned to identify the most powerful Seneca leaders was to look for the men who seemed to be poorest.

Christine whispered, "Damn." She got up and began to walk toward the bathroom.

"What's wrong?"

Before she closed the door she said, "Morning sickness. And this time it's not even morning."